So This is What It Feels Like
by nikatsu
Summary: "Don't let them see you hurt." Meg, at the End of the Summer of Junior Year. [Brief mentions of Meg/Duncan, LoVe & DuVe]


**Dedicated to my VM friend, 0ldLace.**

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><p>The last night before Summer ends, like all of days in Neptune, ends with a bang but Meg can't seem to bring herself to feel infused with the happiness a good party should bring. For the past few months, if she were to be honest, hasn't filled her with any sense of contentment at all since coming down from the height of a romance that should have probably never happened to begin with.<p>

She sighs quietly to herself as confetti some fellow 09er paid to explode inside Java The Hut at the very last second rains overhead, smiling tight and fake-bright as she could muster. All around her she can hear the whoops and cheers of her colleagues, and while it should feel like home—or at least a safe space to escape the worries of her _actual_ home, Meg feels more like an outsider to their antics. If anything she sees past all of the would-be excitement. The students of Neptune High are all great pretenders. And tonight is just another production.

She likes to think that they didn't used to be so good at this. But Meg supposes there really is something to be said about kids living in a desolate town becoming as good as any award-winning actor if given the right motivation. And when her eyes fall on the profile of someone she thought she knew so well until months before, Meg thinks that at this point she just might ask her Drama teacher to give her a more dramatic role on the next school play. Because being busy might help relieve the tightness in her chest. Being able to _pretend_ and release her _emotions_ unto someone playing a part might give her some room to breathe.

Because if she goes on like _this_ much longer, Meg doesn't think she can keep from breaking down. Not when he and his abandonment walks along her thoughts.

But then she's thrown out of her reverie when something makes her stumble. Meg scrambles to maintain balance and finds herself at the mercy of Logan's smirk and all-too knowing gaze. She's about to give him hell—or something close to it as she can get, like a sarcastic quip about stepping on the little people but the thought alone sounds too much like someone she used to think was a real friend in her head that she can't bring herself to speak. Instead Meg nods at him, shrugging a shoulder before moving to brood elsewhere when she sees his eyes flicker to the side. And Lord help her, her curiosity wins out and she can't help but follow where his gaze lands.

A part of her wishes she hadn't. Because it was bad enough that she was feeling _this way_ at a party with people she would never trust with her life, but to see Logan—_the obligatory psychotic jackass king of Neptune High Logan Echolls_—to see _this _version of Logan so helpless behind such a well-constructed façade that's even better than hers, Meg feels some sort form of sick relief.

Because apparently misery really does love company and if Logan feels the same way about Veronica the way she does about Duncan then Meg's more than morbidly glad that she's not alone in witnessing the romantic interlude their exes were enveloped in.

"Chin up, Snow White." Logan says, slipping a drink into her empty hands as he bumps her with his shoulder. It's only a plastic cup of soda and despite herself (or because of it), Meg leans into the brotherly comfort it brings to her heart.

"That's Meg to you." She retorts, trying to sound unaffected when she's really not, before smiling a little sad but actually grateful and genuine grin at his direction. She waits a beat and then adds "Thanks" because even though she doesn't know him well or _at all_, it feels good to be understood.

Logan nods as he pulls a long hearty sip from his flask; breathing deep into his lungs once there's none left. His uncharacteristically soft and tortured eyes staying on Veronica's head dipping closer to Duncan's for awhile longer before flickering dim and back behind iron walls. His posture straightens and Meg recognizes the return of the _Jackass_.

"Don't let them see you hurt," he tells her under his breath just before he pulls a mega-watt grin on his face and turns away, ready to play his part in the same production they both seem to star in.

It's great advice. One that she never thought to be lucky enough to get from someone like Logan but it really is.

So she gives herself a moment to look back to the present. To cast one last glance at Duncan for the night before heading towards the opposite direction of the room. To build her walls up and slip on her mask the way Logan so effortlessly did himself.

Meg gives herself one moment and breathes.

She turns to the crowd and cheers "Pirates! Ahoy!", smiling so wide despite the fracturing pieces that make up her heart. The flood of Neptune High students pulls her in and she lets herself get lost with the tide.

Meg decides it'd be best to play the part until it becomes her.

She plays the part because like it might as well be her only chance at absolution.

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><strong><p>My FIRST Veronica Mars fanfic, which is actually better called a 'ficlet' than anything. I am finally dipping my toes into writing for ze fandom because damn it, I really should have back in '05.<p>

Anyway, the song "This is What it Feels Like" by BANKS inspired this little bit. It's more of a love song really, but damn it if "You said that you couldn't sleep cause of me, told me/I caught you off guard/And then when you saw I felt the same/You pulled away/Started acting like being with me was too hard" made me think of LoVe and the mess they put themselves in but then I couldn't write about them at all so I settled to use one of my favorite characters and~voila!

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**I miss Meg Manning. The VM-ficdom needs more Meg. I still wish she hadn't died or given birth tbh, oh but what can you do. This is me trying to fill in spaces in my head from the Summer before S2. Not sure exactly where I was going with this but it's my first time so I went in gently, I guess.**


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